I can't believe I BROKE it! - OneXPlayer AMD 5700U Version
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
2,701 words · ~13 min read
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- My previous beef with the OneXPlayer has been that it uses Intel Xe graphics,
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which granted is plenty fast, but has cost some driver snags that we've run into.
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This version, whoa, not only does it have a massive,
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nearly nine inch screen, this is an 8.4 inch IPS display,
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but it now uses a Ryzen 5000 series mobile processor,
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the 5700U. So packed within this...
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Wow, dual fan cooling? This thing is sick.
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Packed in here are eight CPU cores, eight Vega GPU cores,
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this gigantic 2560 by 1600 resolution display,
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and actually, those are some pretty nice feeling ABXYs.
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Little bit of a mushy D-pad. Ooh, triggers and joysticks, feeling pretty good.
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Oh, I wanna get this fired up now. Okay, hold on, first though,
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let's see what's inside. Instructions.
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(gasps) It has a night mode switch.
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This is one of my big complaints about the AyaNeo 2021,
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as well as the AyaNeo Next, it doesn't get dim enough when I'm playing at night,
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which a lot of the time is when I'm playing. So I wanna know all about night mode.
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Just wait, it mutes. Oh, I thought maybe it would turn down the display.
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Oh, it's for the fan. Oh, all right.
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Well, I got really excited, but it's a fan profile.
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Ooh, what's in here? Charger. Oh.
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Oh, I did not have to do that at all. (crew members giggle)
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This is a compact looking charger though, I like that.
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That's sick. This has gotta be like a gallium nitride charger
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or something. Ah, it's only like 65 watts.
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Maybe not. Maybe not. Where's my, where are my plugs at?
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(groans) Oh really? Okay, let's talk IO here.
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It's got dual USB three point, whatever the crap they call them at this point,
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one of which is marked for power input and the other one's not, which makes me kind of wonder,
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will they not both accept a power input? I don't know. That one definitely does.
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And that one appears to too. The light turns on regardless.
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A type A, super nice to see, micro USB, headphone microphone combo jack,
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you got your shoulder buttons, got your triggers on the back.
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No rear buttons like the Steam Deck, but there's our night mode, little mute thing.
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It does warn you that the unit will get hotter if you put it in night mode.
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Got our volume up and down where they're out of the way. Fingerprint sensors, as well as power button.
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Then on the bottom, you've got this little magnetic interface for like a keyboard dock thing.
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They didn't send over one of those, so I can't show that to you. And no bottom USB ports.
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That's one of the things I really like about the AyaNeo, is depending on where I'm using it,
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sometimes I like to have the charger plugged into the top, sometimes I prefer the bottom.
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With both the OneXPlayer and the Steam Deck,
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you are stuck plugging in on top, which in this particular circumstance
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is actually kind of inconvenient. Ah yes, and we should talk
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about what makes the OneXPlayer AMD version special, because this thing is crazy, freaking powerful.
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It's got a Ryzen 5700U, which is about a hundred megahertz slower
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than the 5800U that's in the AyaNeo Next, across the board.
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But it's got the same 8 CPU core 16 threads,
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and the same 8 Vega GPU cores.
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They're just clocked a little bit slower. And what I would be interested to see
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is how that works out in the real world, because what I suspect, once we open this thing up,
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is that we are gonna find a much, much beefier cooling solution.
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I mean, there's already two fans and two heat sinks, compared to one fan and one heat sink, right?
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Ergonomics, pretty good. Like the AyaNeo Founders though,
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it's got kind of a sharp edge on the bottom where your palm is,
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and the weight is substantial, but not as much more as I would have expected,
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given the dramatically larger screen. Now, one a really cool thing
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about having such a high resolution screen, 2560 by 1600 at this size is flipping crazy,
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is that you don't have to run it at that. You can run it at 1080p,
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you can run it in 720p. And because the pixel density is so high,
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you don't get the same kind of really awful interpolation
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that we used to get way back in the day when we tried to run non-native resolutions.
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To be clear, it's still not gonna look as sharp as it would if it was at native res,
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but it's a lot less bad. If that kinda makes sense.
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So here's the OneXplayer AMD, 821 grams,
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AyaNeo Next, 717.
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So this is definitely a hands on the table
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kinda gaming device. The additional size though,
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makes it feel like it's balanced,
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it's a balanced heavy, not like a super dense heavy.
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For now, these black bars are a good opportunity to look for backlight bleed.
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Obviously, this isn't a darkened room or anything like that, but if it was nearly as bad as the AyaNeo Pro 2021,
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it would be noticeable here. And I'd say, yeah, there's a little bit of backlight bleed,
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but not much. Pretty good show.
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Definitely appreciating the front-facing speakers compared to a lot of the other handhelds
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that I've checked out lately. Makes a big difference to the spatiality.
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Ooh, their vibration motors are getting pretty good too.
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Okay, so we're managing anywhere from around 50 to 55 FPS,
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even in these busy areas. Not bad.
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That is certainly, certainly playable.
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Let's go through some trees there. I saw a little bit of a stutter there, but, man, are AMD's GPU drivers ever an improvement
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compared to Xe, from my limited time with them.
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I mean, just all those years of experience, they show, right?
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I wanna see if we can manage 1920 by 1200. Let's see how bad this is.
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Ooh, that's a lot sharper. I don't think this is gonna be...
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Yeah, okay. If you're already with 30 FPS, that's actually not bad.
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And remember, this is at medium settings.
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I would take the lower resolution, personally, but if you're playing this game
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more for the eye candy of it, then this is definitely more eye candy.
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Pretty darn quiet. Like here, can you even hear that, Andy?
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You can hear it? Okay, yeah. I'm liking the dual fan cooling solution for sure.
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It seems like the one on the right's doing the bulk of the work. I'd be interested to see how the heat pipes are laid out.
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We will get it opened up. Don't you worry, guys. I do like the cooler display profile
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that OneXPlayer's using on their units compared to the warmer display profile that Aya's using.
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Holy crap, this performance though.
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Wow, in spite of the OneXPlayer AMD having a lower tier processor,
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it is sitting, looking down the same road
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in nearly the same spot, getting about 20% more FPS.
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We're talking 45 versus 55 FPS right now,
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sitting here in this same spot pretty much. That's flipping crazy.
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I guess extra cooling's a good thing, right? Hold on, let me make sure I'm in the right performance.
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Lemon power saving. Okay, that was close.
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(Jono laughs) And the AyaNeo Next is out ahead of it by three FPS.
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Okay. Yeah, it's just out, maybe like two FPS out ahead.
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Not much, but it is out ahead now. Now we could run some more games,
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but I think you guys wanna see what makes it tick.
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iFixit wants you to help join the right to repair movement.
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They make it easy to prepare your own devices by following their step-by-step guides,
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to replace integrated batteries and get more life out of the stuff that you own.
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Check out how iFix can help you repair your devices
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at the link in the video description. They've got over three thousand guides, they've got their ASP tools, with lifetime warranties,
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all that good stuff.
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Yeah, iFixit. Oh, by the way, since we're back here,
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now is as good a time as any to talk about this sweet kickstand.
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Clearly OneX, whoop! Clearly, OneXPlayer noticed
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that this thing's a bit of a chunk, so they put a nice little kickstand on the back.
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So you can adjust it at any angle you want. Boom! You're ready to game, boys.
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Wait, was that a Nintendo trademark? Please, Nintendo, be nice to me.
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- [Jono] I thought it was a- - Aah! Well, there's the ribbon cable
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for our power button and touch, wow, this is a,
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holy bananas, that is a big battery, okay.
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Well, there may not be a performance advantage compared to the AyaNeo Next,
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but that battery is flipping huge.
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And I would expect that to be an advantage.
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That is a 58.9.
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It's nearly a 59 watt hour battery. That is,
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that's like over 25% bigger. I would expect a solid,
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anywhere from a half an hour to 40 minutes to even up to another hour of battery life
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out of this guy. There's our front-facing speakers.
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This looks like our vibration motors right here on these little, like, foam dampers.
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Definitely a little less clean on the internals
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and way more work to swap up the SSD. There's a one terabyte SSD in here,
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but with the AyaNeo Next, I've actually upgraded it to an eight terabyte SSD,
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'cause it's super easy to get at once you're inside. A little bit more involved,
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but it is definitely something that could be done. You just have to pull off these fans.
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And then presumably, this buddy right here, which has the heat pipe running over it as well.
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I don't think it's happening today, but this does give us a good look at the mechanism for the trigger buttons here.
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Oh, and the specs. I know the RAM wasn't on the spec sheet,
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but it's 16 gigs, Jono. It's on this little label inside.
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(Jono laughs) - [Jono] Nice. - We'll check what frequency it runs at
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when we put it back together here. I do like how easily the back cover comes off of this one
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compared to the Mini, which I also opened up and had these like double-sided tape tabs
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that I had to pull off the top and the bottoms. So this is really nice.
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They both have this cool button. So the bring-up-the-desktop button now.
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On the OneXPlayer, it's this guy right... Hello? At least I thought it was.
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Man, I'm super confused now. Yeah. See, this one does it.
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I gotta assume that that's just a temporary nonsense thing.
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There's no way that that's not gonna work. So the other buttons we have here are the turbo button,
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which is gonna run our CPU in its highest performance profile,
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obviously on a device like this. That means the GPU as well.
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And this keyboard button, which seems to have the long press configured to...
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Okay, yeah, now I'm like super confused. (chuckles)
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I don't know what that's supposed to do right now. Okay, now my controls are all over the place.
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What is this right analog stick doing? Oh! Oh it does have a built-in joystick to mouse thing.
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I've just activated it, through a long press, maybe?
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(Jono laughs) Yes! I think a long press activates that.
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Okay, well that's actually, maybe pretty cool, I guess.
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Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, there we go.
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Oh, that's sick. I love the size of this screen.
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Like seriously, man, are you seeing this?
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You know what's another thing that's really nice? I can really feel it.
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This display, great input lag.
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Like, even though I'm running it
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only 40 to 50 FPS right now,
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it just feels really responsive, like really good.
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Whops. Whoops, whoops, whoops. Wait, is this shoulder? Oh no, I broke this trigger.
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I wanna put it back together. I didn't put it back in right.
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Ah, shoot. Okay, well, we'll have to fix that later.
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Okay, what's the memory running at? 4266, so same as the AyaNeo Next
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and the last Gen products for that matter. In a nutshell, performance is similar,
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but it's gonna come down to what kind of a form factor you want. Do you want the large 8.4 inch display?
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Do you want the compact seven inch display with of course the associated challenges
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that come with both of them? One of the things that's actually been kind of annoying for me,
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I've been playing through Final Fantasy Tactics on this thing, and getting at the select button,
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eh, it's kind of risk breaking actually.
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That's not a problem that you'd have on a device like this, where they're both easily accessible.
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But, I think this would dig into your palm a little bit more
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and obviously it weighs considerably more, about a hundred grams or like a fifth of a pound,
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for our Yankee friends. Both of them are freaking cool and both of them are way more expensive than the Steam Deck.
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Although the difference is that these actually exist,
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and the Steam Deck, unless you've already ordered it many months ago,
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is not gonna be shipping to you anytime soon. So how desperate are you to play your PC games
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on a handheld device at freaking anywhere from 30 to 60 FPS,
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depending on how demanding it is? Well, that's gonna determine whether you pull the trigger
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on something like one of these or wait a little bit longer,
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'cause we're expecting the performance of the Steam Deck to be as good or better because of its RDNA 2 graphics.
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Although CPU performance is actually going to be worse than either of these 'cause they both have Zen 3 cores
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and Steam Deck is using Zen 2. You know what I want?
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I want the hardware of the AyaNeo Next with the more like the lower profile shape
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of the original Neo. The ergonomics are definitely better
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in some ways on the Next, but I also find them a little bit more challenging
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in other ways. But the hardware, man.
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Between these two though, boy am I ever torn?
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The full desktop-size joysticks on the Neo Next,
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really nice. Definitely like the easier access to start and select.
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Like the front-facing speakers. That's a big deal.
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Like the screen color profile. Ah, I don't know.
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(crew members laughing) - [Jono] It's like I asked you who's your favorite kid.
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- I know, right? (crew members laughing)
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If I'm playing more sightseeing type games,
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like, if I'm playing like a Tomb Raider or something like that, like adventure games,
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playing new Psychonauts or whatever, I take this. Better speakers, bigger screen.
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But if portability is my main concern and I just want that performance
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in the smallest possible form factor, man, you cannot beat this.
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This is crazy. I'm gonna stick with the Neo Next.
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But if my SSD was in here, I wouldn't bother switching it.
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I think they're both excellent choices. - [Jono] I'll take the OneXPlayer,
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but you gotta fix the trigger. - I gotta fix the trig, you fix the trigger!
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I'll take it. I'll take it off your hands. (crew members laughing) This guy!
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This guy here, he'll take nothing. Subscribe to ShortCircuit.